_The Doctor's Talk_
Tom went at once to his chopping, for being, as the Doctor said, "a
healthy young animal," his sleep, his bath and his breakfast had
completely cured him of his exhaustion.
At noon the boys made a hasty dinner, as was their custom when chopping,
for the days were still short and they liked to utilize as many of the
daylight hours as they could.
They had contracted to deliver a specified number of ties by the first
of April or sooner, and they had already completed that part of their
task; but their contract permitted them to send down as many more ties,
doubling the number if they could; while, as for cordwood and bridge
timbers, there was no limit set upon their deliveries. They were anxious
to cut all they could and thus to make their winter's work as profitable
as possible, and so they were not disposed to waste any part of a day so
fine as this one was.
While they were chopping in the afternoon, just as a big tree on which
the Doctor was at work began swaying to its fall, a large raccoon which
had been hiding in the hollow of one of its upper limbs leaped to the
ground. The Doctor, who had become almost as "quick on trigger" as Tom
himself, seized a shotgun and fired. The animal fell instantly, riddled
with turkey shot, and a minute later the Doctor held it up by the tail,
saying:
"Here's a supper for us, boys! It'll be a change from bear beef, any
how, and you are to have the skin, Tom."
The boys shouted for joy, for they were growing exceedingly weary of
bear meat by this time, and there are few things more appetizing than a
fat raccoon. So the Doctor carried his game to the house, where Ed
proceeded at once to dress it for supper.
It was not until after supper that Tom related the story of his mountain
adventure, and as he was an expert mimic, he succeeded in so presenting
the mountaineer's part in the conversation as to cause a deal of
laughter, in which Tom himself joined heartily, although his own memory
of his difficult journey was anything but ludicrous.
The weather had grown exceedingly cold again and the logs were piled
high on the fire. As the boys basked in the heat that was radiated into
the room, some one said: "What a pity it is to waste all the heat that
is going off up the chimney! It would run an engine."
"So it would," said the Doctor, "but that is what all the world is
constantly doing. The wood that we have burned since supper would supply
a French or Italian house with fire for a month at least."
"But how?" asked Jack. "Surely wood burns up as fast in France or Italy
as it does here."
"Of course. But the French and Italians--especially the Italians--have
very little wood, and they use it very sparingly. When they make an open
fire it is made of sticks about eight or ten inches long, very small and
usually consisting of round wood. They rarely have a split stick,
because they never cut down a tree, or if they do they use every part of
it that is bigger than your wrist for some kind of lumber useful in the
arts."
"But if they don't cut down trees," asked Harry, "how do they get any
wood at all?"
"They have very few trees," answered the Doctor, "and instead of cutting
them down they trim off the branches from time to time and make fire
wood of them, utilizing every particle, even down to the smallest twigs,
which they cut into eight inch lengths and tie up in bundles for use in
boiling their soup kettles. In some parts of Southern California,"
continued the Doctor, "they get their fire wood in the same way, though
they do not have to bother with the little twigs, as tree growth is
enormously rapid in that winter-less climate. At San Bernardino I have
seen many houses standing in large grounds, with a row of cottonwood
trees all around at the edge of the sidewalk. I have often seen these
trees with every limb cut off close to the stem of the tree--not more
than a few feet from it at farthest. In that way the owner gets his fire
wood--he doesn't need much of it--for three years to come. The trees
thus pollarded quickly put out a host of new branches and as these grow
rapidly in a climate that has no winter, they are ready to be cut again
three years later."
"But if trees grow so rapidly there," asked Tom, "how is it that there
are no woodlands there?"
"Because it is a rainless region. It is a desert simply for a lack of
water, and when men build reservoirs up in the mountains and bring water
down in irrigating ditches that desert literally blossoms like a rose.
The soil is as rich as any down in our valleys and creek low grounds
here, and as there is no winter every living thing grows all the year
round. At Riverside, for example, you find a luxuriance of growth
unmatched anywhere in these mountains. Eucalyptus trees border all the
roads, towering to great heights. Back of them are orange and lemon
groves and still further back vast vineyards in which the stumps of the
vines--for they are cut back to a stump every year, to make them
bear--are from four to six inches in diameter, so that they need no
stakes to support them as vines do here. Often also there are rows of
luxuriant pepper trees flourishing in the middle of the road. In short,
you can nowhere on earth except in swamps, find a more luxuriant riot of
vegetation than at Riverside. Yet until men made reservoirs and ditches
and brought water down there from the mountains the ground that now
supports all this splendid growth was as bare as the palm of your hand,
and when you drive out of Riverside in any direction, you come instantly
to an absolute desert, without even a weed growing on it, the moment you
pass beyond the line of irrigating ditches."
"Is there much land of that sort?" asked Jack, "land that is fertile I
mean in itself, but is desert because of a lack of water?"
"Millions of acres of it, though much of it has already been redeemed by
irrigation. General Sherman once said that when he first crossed the
San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys he could have bought the whole of
them for twenty-five cents, and in fact would not have given a penny for
both. Yet to-day those valleys are the most productive wheat fields in
the world, not even excepting Minnesota and the Dakotas. In a single
year they have been known to furnish fifty million bushels of wheat for
export, after feeding the Pacific coast fat."
"But is there always water to be had for irrigating purposes?" asked
Jack, who was becoming intensely interested.
"Practically, yes," the Doctor answered. "That is a country of vast
mountain ranges, all the way from the Rockies to the sea, with great
valleys and plains lying between. It is almost always raining or snowing
in the mountains, and indeed the tops of the higher ranges are nearly
always snow clad, even in summer. I remember once crossing the Utah
desert, which lies between the Rocky mountains proper and the Wassach
range. There is no sand or gravel there, but only a singularly rich
soil, barren for lack of rain alone. During the entire trip across we
were never for one minute out of sight of either a snow storm or a rain
storm some where in the mountains that surround the desert. Obviously
enough water falls in the mountains to make of that desert the very
garden spot of America when ever men take measures to store the water
and bring it down to the desert lands below. The Mormons, who have made
a rich farming region in this way out of the desert west of the Wassach
range, have already begun doing this on the eastern side in a limited
way. At Pleasant Valley they have brought water down from the mountains
and made gardens that are a delight to the eye and mind. They grow there
the finest black Hamburg grapes in the world. But neither that nor any
other of the great deserts can be redeemed entirely until either the
government or some great company able to spend money by scores of
millions shall undertake the work in a systematic way, selling water
rights with every farm. Of course no farmer can provide a water supply
for himself from mountains twenty miles away, but if a great company or
the government would catch and store the water and sell the right to use
it to each farmer, as is done in parts of Southern California, the major
part of what used to be called 'the great American desert' would soon
become the great American garden. Of course the alkali deserts of Nevada
and worse still, the arid, sandy, gravelly, soilless plains of Arizona
and New Mexico can never be reclaimed in that way. But the regions that
are barren only because they get no rain, can be redeemed and very
certainly will be when this country becomes so crowded with population
that every acre of arable land will be needed."
"But isn't this country pretty badly crowded already?" asked Tom.
"Crowded? No," answered the Doctor. "It is very sparsely settled
instead. This country has a population of only twenty people to the
square mile, while Belgium has 529 and England 540 to the square mile.
Long before we fill up to any such extent as that all our arid lands
that are fit for cultivation will be watered from the mountains, and
regions where now even a cactus cannot grow will produce wheat, corn,
cattle and fruits in lavish abundance. But I say, boys, we've talked
till after eleven o'clock. This will never do; let's get to bed."